Date   : Mon, 30 Mar 2009 14:25:52 +0100
From   : bbcmailinglist@... (Ian Wolstenholme)
Subject: Technomatic Being Very Naughty

Well, it's working now, but only when it wants to!

I haven't really got to the bottom of what is causing the problem, but it
seems to stop operating without any warning whenever it feels like it.
So, I might be changing directory, dumping a file, loading a file or verifying
some sectors when the drive light decides to go off and there is no further
response.

The only way to get the Beeb to respond when this happens is to press
BREAK.  Sometimes the CAPS LOCK light is frozen, other times it isn't.

After pressing BREAK, most of the time there is no response, sometimes
the disc is mounted successfully and I can carry on, and sometimes I
get disc error 61 at a sector which is where the current directory would
be stored on the disc.

After that, it's a question of pressing CTRL-A-BREAK at various intervals
until it decides to mount the disc again.  I've found that if I press BREAK
a few times quickly, then CTRL-A-BREAK, it's slightly more likely to respond
than just waiting a while, but even this is pot luck.

Every now and again after pressing CTRL-A-BREAK I get an unexpected
mode change and the TV picture jumping about till I press CTRL-BREAK
again, as if some of the special workspace RAM is being overwritten.

The only other thing I can add is that the free space map is wrong, reporting
283MB of space available.  However, it's been like this for some years even
before it stopped working originally, so I'm not sure if it's relevant.  The free
and used space figures seem to update correctly when saving files.

Can anyone suggest why this erratic behaviour might be happening, and
what the solution might be?

Best wishes,



Ian